Countdown to Christmas has begun!!

I walked into Sainsburys today with a friend (we were buying ingredients for the BEST CURRY EVER... but that's a different story for a different day) and we quickly realised that the build up to Christmas is getting earlier and earlier each year! The aisles were filled with festive treats... candy canes, cadbury chocolate tree decorations, selection boxes and mince pies.

The truth is everybody loves Christmas, it doesn't matter how old you get!

But the thing that struck me as odd is that whilst investigating the mince pies I found that the sell date was for November... a whole month before Christmas. This may be forgiven if it wasn't for the fact that the box even had a picture of Father Christmas on it! I read in The Sun today that Tesco is selling boxes of them that are sell by October.

The holiday season is taking oveeer!!

Newborn Tot Found In Bushes

One story this week that has really upset me is that of the newborn baby found in some bushes in Buckinhamshire. The baby was found on a piece of open ground in High Wycombe with her umbilical cord still attached, suggesting that the birth of the child was not supervised by medical professionals.

Although the baby was thought to have been safe and well whilst being cared for by staff at the Wycombe General Hospital, what emotional pain will this child feel growing up knowing that she was abandoned at birth?

I suspect that the mother was maybe a young girl who accidentally got pregnant because she doesn't think contraception is important... in the words of Jeremy Kyle "Put something on the end of it!"

Who am I to judge though? This girl/woman could have some serious deep rooted psychological issues, but to leave your own baby after birth is far beyond any mental illness I have ever come across. I fail to understand the sheer cold heartedness of this. To call it a severe case of post natal wouldn't do this defenseless child any justice.

I hope that this anonymous mother will come forward and seek help.

This weeks guilty pleasure...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pccguTaYDLQ

This week I have been listening to Wake Up by French internet sensation Sliimy. I don't quite know why I like it but I do!! It is a very uppy song and even though the lyrics are mostly gibberish and you can't sing along it does leave you with a smile on your face! Just don't listen to it infront of anyone if you want to be valued as a respectful member of society...

Sliimy has been described as the "French Mika". He has been posting songs on myspace for 2 years but it was a cover of Britney Spears' Womanizer on Perez Hilton's blog that got him noticed and landed him a signing with record label Perezcious Music in the US.

A level results day!!

Congratulations to everybody who got good A level results today! I'm sure there is alot of celebrating going on across the country with the overall pass rate being a staggering 97.5%!! I personally failed 2 AS levels in my first year of college and spent the second year attempting to catch up so it's nice to see that a majority of college students are taking their futures seriously. In hindsight I wish I knuckled down a bit more but I had fun and I still made it into Uni so MEH!

1 in 4 entries got an A grade this year which is a significant progression from last year and there are 60,000 more applicants for university from last year.

Maybe the hold of the recession is making teenagers more keen to stay in education right now!

Biggs is free!! (but on verge of death)

I would just like to point out that while all the newspapers are sensationally claiming that Ronnie Biggs has finally been released from prison on compassionate grounds, the actuality is that the guards from his hospital bed have been dismissed as he is going to die any minute!

Girl dies from undiagnosed diabetes as her father prays...

Just a quick point to add on to yesterdays blog...

I remembered the story of Madeline Neumann, the 11 year old girl who died from easily treatable diabetes because it remained undetected due to her religious father's reluctance to call out for a doctor's help. The girl could not walk, talk or eat towards the end but her father claimed if he had gone to a doctor he would be putting the doctor above God and that wasn't something he was prepared to do... preferring to PRAY for her recovery instead.

It is a difficult subject to approach as I'm sure it is possible that the father actually did believe that God would heal his sick daughter... but does this not suggest that religion can become a little "brainwashy" or become an obsession when people let it take over their lives. This girl had her whole life ahead of her and passed away because her dad thought a man who may or may not exist would heal her. It's really scary.

Yesterday I suggested that people may base their lives on the teachings of the bible as a clean way of living, but by taking the book too literally Mr.Neumann has now been charged with murder.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/02/us-daughter-pray-death

Religion as explained by Gran!

I spent a day out with my grandmother recently and our topic of conversation swiftly changed to that of religion when I questioned how she perceives 'God'. Now my gran is a devout Christian.... goes to church every Sunday, helps and organises the church bazaars etc. I was interested to know how she could base her lifestyle on a religion that has so many flaws in the story.

First of all I challenged her to the question, if this God blokey made the whole world in seven days... around the same time he impregnated Mary to have the immaculate conception then how did he create the dinosaurs? This was before Jesus I'm sure? I also thought while I was at it I would point out that there are many different Gods from different countries thought to have created the earth... they couldn't all be right?

Then I asked if she actually viewed God as a person or a force because as a non-religious person it has always been unclear to me. There are plenty of illustrations of Jesus on the crucifix but rarely do you see a painting of God. My gran said a bit of both... now there is an answer from somebody who knows exactly what she believes in aye?!

I then made a suggestion that could have gotten me into deep water and pushed down a couple of steps on the favourite grandchild ladder... lol. I said that I thought maybe some people that follow Christianity and go to church every Sunday practising their 'beliefs' don't at all believe in all the unplausible bible stories but base their lives on the church as it is a clean and honest way of living. They do it to give themselves a guide of what is acceptable for them to do.

I was shocked that she admitted that in her case this is partly true. While she did go on about how many of the things in the bible that people used to brand as complete rubbish can now be proved, she also said that some of it probably was made up to give people that couldn't get their head around how we got here an answer. For people to believe that we are here from a force so powerful that we don't understand it... in a way made sense to them.

It seems silly that a thing that may have been partially made up to keep people in line is one of the main causes of war in this world. Could it be that countries are fighting and killing each other over something actually quite false?